We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ivan Iler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ivan, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

All of my life, I have been drawn to creative pursuits. As a little boy, I was constantly inventing things, always curious to know how the world around me worked. I was always tinkering, inventing, and dreaming. In addition to my little inventions, I really enjoyed painting and drawing, but even still I felt called to create more. When I was in High School, I taught myself how to weld, thanks to a teacher who allowed me to use the welding equipment at the school after hours, and I even spent a few years as a tattoo artist.

Even though I was always passionate about art and creating things, I wasn’t necessarily always pursuing the creative arts professionally. In my early twenties, I was actually working at a gas station and at some point just sort of realized it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing with my life – I could do better and I could be more. I didn’t want to let my potential go to waste working a job I didn’t really care about, I wanted to make a living doing something I was passionate about, something that gave me a creative challenge and sense of accomplishment. In that moment I decided to put two of my passions together and open a custom motorcycle shop. This opened the doors for me to run my own business, use my hands to build, and create art in the form of beautiful and unique custom motorcycles.

During this time, I also began to apply for some public art sculpture opportunities. It took awhile to get the first one since I hadn’t done anything like that before, but once I did – I started finding more opportunities for this type of work. Early in the pandemic, the shop was shut down and through this adversity, I sort of had my second ‘call’ to fully pursuit art as my profession. I decided to go ahead and let the motorcycle shop go in order to focus fully on creating and selling my art. I continued to build public sculptures, but what I really found most exciting was Lansing’s annual ‘ScrapFest’ Competition, in which artists are given an hour to collect a designated amount of scrap metal to build a piece of artwork, and then the city puts on a small festival where the artwork is displayed and winners are determined. It was through work I had done for Scrapfest that I was found and offered the opportunity to be on the Netflix premier series ‘Metal Shop Masters.’

Since doing the show, I am more certain than ever that this is what I am supposed to be doing with my life. Feeling that constant need to create and push myself as an artist gives me satisfaction and purpose in my work. I feel really grateful and proud to be making a living as an artist, and inspiring others to do the same.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well I addressed a lot of this in the first question, I think. Regarding my services, I tend to honestly do a little bit of everything. My main focus and what I’m most known for is metal art and fabrication. I create both large and small scale works of art from various types of metal ranging from life-sized kinetic elephants made of scrap metal to custom ordered metal mushrooms for a private client’s backyard. Probably what sets me apart most are my kinetic pieces – meaning they move when a gear is turned. I’ve done swimming whales, a fox chasing a hare, a swimming mermaid, and more. However, I also do leatherwork, welding and fabrication projects, sell paintings, etc. I like to say that where some people collect stamps, I like to collect knowledge/hobbies.

What I most want potential clients to know about my work is that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist with my work which means clients can guarantee they’ll be happy with the final product. I really care about the work I do, and I will always create art for you that I am proud of.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is creating. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than creating art, and I am happiest when I am building and creating. The work is the reward for me when I’m making art.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

In general, I am just very inspired by science and the way things work. A lot of my work is impacted by various scientific resources, or by just watching nature. I think that studying the way things works, really striving to understand the world around us influences my art because it gives me a deeper understanding of what it is I’m trying to build.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ivanilerstudios.com
• Instagram: ivan_iler
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ivanilerstudios
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/IvanIlerStudios

Image Credits
Brooke Foorman